Oh boy…
2 y/o: Broke my arm while my dad was playing with me on the couch, he tossed me up and I hit the wall. Or so I was told! Plaster cast, cute pictures.
4 y/o: 4th of July. Fell off the monkey bars… My dad again! He said he had me, so I let go. He didn’t. Plaster cast on my whole leg, I scooted myself around backwards dragging my leg with me everywhere. Left white lines on all the patios and sidewalks. Cute pictures.
18 y/o: First ski trip to Keystone in Colorado. I’d been skiing a long time. We were skiing in some glades, my ski caught on a log buried in snow, I caught myself while holding my pole. Thumb bent back. Figured I just jammed it. Last day of trip my friend did something similar, whined about how it must be broken, we went to first aid, he got all the attention from the nurses, and it was just sprained.
Two weeks later, my “jammed thumb“ still wasn’t better. Got an x-ray, had an avulsion fracture (broken where the tendon attaches to the bone and would lead to that piece of bone separating from the rest of it). Two months in a big fat cast to keep my wrist and thumb completely immobilized. Medically, a big non-event.
29 y/o: My last trip to Keystone on Colorado. Powdered my knee.
Ski patrol had to take me down the mountain on a sled. In that same first aid building from 10 years earlier, I was laid on an exam table, my leg was bent about 70 degrees. I must have been in shock… there was a massive bump below my knee, the doctor poked and prodded it, I felt nothing. “Has this lump always been there?” “I … don’t think so …” An x-ray was taken. Soon the pain began. I asked for drugs. Morphine was provided, and I was happy. My fiancé was shown the x-ray.
“What’s that?”
”Well, it used to be a knee…”
Avulsion of the tibial plateau (top of the tibia), torn ACL, torn meniscus.
Got an ambulance ride to Vail Valley Medical Center in a snowstorm through the mountains. A very long surgery the next day, I got two metal plates and 15 pins and screws for souvenirs. 12 days ago in a wonderful hospital - apparently it was a popular destination for professional athletes who also needed orthopedic surgery! If you ever plan on destroying your knee, definitely do it in Vail!
(this feels long…I’ll write up the rest of the hospital stay - let’s face it, that’s the part you really want to hear about - in another post)
-g